1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to oral health assessments. More specifically, it relates to use of digital imaging to standardize, assess, and score oral health in a subject.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Despite its prominent position in bedside care, there is little evidence to judge the benefits or associated risks of nurse-administered tooth brushing for mechanically ventilated adults, and the optimal frequency of tooth brushing in the critically ill has never been experimentally determined. Traditional methods for scoring oral health, including both tooth (e.g., plaque burden) and gum (e.g., inflammation) health, have relied upon visual examination by skilled professionals, including dental hygienists. Given the relatively subjective nature of this process, measurement of oral health is suboptimal for a number of reasons including, but not limited to: time burden, lack of reliability within and between assessors, lack of universal standardized scoring algorithms, and computational complexity in attempting to score oral health on multiple dimensions, such as simultaneous assessment of age and extent of plaque burden.
Attempts have been made at evaluating and quantifying plaque and oral health. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 8,110,178; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/832,652; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/662,346; Lupita Jocelin Reyes Silveyra, Investigations on Automated Methods for Dental Plaque Detection, A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Dentistry College of Medical and Dental Sciences, The University of Birmingham, September 2011; Pretty I A, et al., Quantification of dental plaque in the research environment, Journal of dentistry (2005), 33, (3), 193-207, ISSN: 0300-5712; Michael G McGrady, et al., Evaluating the use of fluorescent imaging for the quantification of dental fluorosis, BMC Oral Health (2012), 12, 47; and Rosa G M, et al., New portable system for dental plaque measurement using a digital single-lens reflex camera and image analysis: Study of reliability and validation. Journal of Indian Society of Periodontology. 2015; 19(3):279-284. doi:10.4103/0972-124X.152415. However, none provide a standardized and objective system for assessing oral health.
Accordingly, what is needed for both for clinicians and researchers is a reliable, user-friendly, and fully objective and standardized methodology and system for quantifying and scoring oral health. However, in view of the art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the field of this invention how the shortcomings of the prior art could be overcome.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate disclosure of the invention, Applicants in no way disclaim these technical aspects, and it is contemplated that the claimed invention may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.
The present invention may address one or more of the problems and deficiencies of the prior art discussed above. However, it is contemplated that the invention may prove useful in addressing other problems and deficiencies in a number of technical areas. Therefore, the claimed invention should not necessarily be construed as limited to addressing any of the particular problems or deficiencies discussed herein.
In this specification, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge, or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which this specification is concerned.